HAWAIIAN GROUP. 35 



person, and instances occurred where all the moos which composed an 

 ili, were possessed by one individual. 



Every feudatory was bound to his particular land-owner, after the 

 same manner as the chief or land-owner was bound to the king; and 

 thus a feudal connexion was established between the king and his 

 lowest subject, by which tie the society or clan was held together. 



The king and chiefs having power even to depriving a chief not only 

 of his rank, but also of his possessions, had complete control over the 

 whole, and had them firmly bound to their purposes. 



This was the only system of government known to the Hawaiians, 

 and even the older chiefs cannot be persuaded that authority or govern- 

 ment can be successfully maintained by any other means. Their argu- 

 ment is, " If they cannot take the people's lands away from them, what 

 will they care for their authority V 



But, what appears extraordinary, this bond was more often severed 

 by the superiors than by their vassals, notwithstanding the landlord had 

 not only a right to require military service, to tax his particular tenants 

 at pleasure, and demand other things, among which might be daily 

 labour in any or every kind of employment, so that a labourer seldom 

 received on an average more than one-third of the value of his work, 

 while the different chiefs pocketed the rest. But this was not all ; even 

 this portion of one-third was not secure, for they had no line of demar- 

 cation by which the tenant could separate the profits of his labour from 

 the property of his chief; and if he by any chance was industrious, and 

 brought his farm into a good state of cultivation, he was at once 

 marked out as a subject for taxation. No tenant, in short, could call 

 any thing he had his own. Favouritism, jealousy, and fickleness of 

 character were so general, that no landholder could consider himself 

 sure of the fruits of his own exertions, and therefore would make no 

 improvements, and even ridiculed the idea of attempting them. 



These exactions came so heavily at times from particular chiefs, 

 that the landholders found it necessary, in order to avoid starvation, to 

 hold lands at the same time under different chiefs, so that their chance 

 might be greater of retaining a portion, and that the necessities of one 

 of them could not entirely sweep away the whole. 



All that restrained a chief in demanding taxes or from dispossessing 

 his tenants was a certain sense of propriety, which forbade the ejection 

 of the actual cultivator of the land, notwithstanding the changes which 

 mi^ht take place above him, so that those possessing the moos were 

 seldom disturbed. Self-interest must have pointed out this course to 

 the chiefs, and it not only prevented distress throughout the different 

 islands, but mitigated the evils of the frequent changes that were 



